


Seeing Stars

by doodledinmypants



Series: Pink Lars is Best Lars [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Ace!Connie, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Fusion, Jealousy, Kissing, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Romance, relationship navigation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 23:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodledinmypants/pseuds/doodledinmypants
Summary: "I don't know if I can do this," he said, the words tumbling out of him before he'd had a chance to really think about them. "I just... I feel like a third wheel, even when you're fused. Maybe especially because you're fused."...Lars and Steven have been dating for a few months. When Connie comes back from college for a visit, how will Lars handle his feelings of jealousy and inadequacy?





	Seeing Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third fic in the series, but could probably stand on its own. Written on my phone and un-beta'd.

  
"There it is!" Steven bounced on his toes, waving at the bus. Lars stretched and yawned. Why Connie insisted on taking the early bird bus from Empire City University to Beach City was anyone's guess. Apparently she thought that Steven picking her up on Lion would have been "too dramatic" and inappropriate for campus. Couldn't she have taken an afternoon bus, though?

Lars kept his thoughts to himself. He knew how excited Steven was to see her. She'd only been gone at school for a few months and was coming home for the winter holiday break, but the way Steven acted she might as well have been away for years.

The bus finally squealed and chuffed to a stop at the curb, and Connie was the only passenger to step out. Steven immediately swung her up into a big bear hug, and they laughed. Lars grabbed the suitcase from where she'd dropped it.

"Connie! I missed you so much!"

"I missed you, too, Steven! Hi, Lars."

"Hey."

Connie laughed as Steven finally set her down. He towered over her now, and Lars was struck by a conflicting jab of jealousy and affection at how cute she looked with him. "Thanks for meeting me here, guys. Dad would have, but I didn't want to interrupt his sleep. He's still on night shift."

"You couldn't have kept me away," Steven said. He was looking at her so warmly and there was that jealousy/affection twinge again. Lars cleared his throat. "Oh! I almost forgot. Lars is gonna spend the day with us! Isn't that great?"

"Yeah!" Connie beamed at Lars and came over to give him a hug. "I'm so glad you and Steven got together. I was worried he'd be too lonely when I went off to college without him."

"I was still lonely without you," Steven said with an exaggerated pout. "But yeah, Lars helped."

"Are you sure you want me around today?" Lars asked, glancing uncertainly between them. "I mean, I totally get it if you just wanna be alone together."

"But we do want you around, don't we, Connie?" Steven looked to her for support and she nodded.

"You're part of 'us' now," she said, gesturing to all of them. Then she gave him a shy sort of smile that made Lars' insides flutter. "Besides, I want to take the opportunity to get to know you better."

Lars turned a darker shade of pink. Connie was super cute, but also very firmly asexual. He hadn't imagined she'd have any interest in him when she already had Steven.

"We should go on a date!" Steven said. "All three of us!"

Connie looked surprised at the suggestion, but it was Lars who said, "Dude, it's like seven in the morning. Also there are three of us."

"So? Sour Cream, Jenny, and Buck do it all the time. And we could get breakfast!"

Lares couldn't really argue with that. The 'cool kids' had been a poly romantic triad for as long as he could remember. Was that what he, Steven, and Connie were, now? Or what they were going to be? He found that he didn't hate the idea. He and Connie didn't have the same kind of deep connection that either of them did with Steven, but they could work on that.

"Maybe we could fuse as Stevonnie," Connie said. She winked at Lars. "I'm sure you wouldn't mind, right?"

Ha. Oh, yeah. Lars coughed and scratched the back of his neck. "Whatever."

Steven, thrilled, added, "Then maybe it'll be less strange for Lars to be on a date with us! Let's do it!"

Lars began to point out that it wasn't necessarily 'less' strange to date a fusion than just two separate people at once, but Connie and Steven were already dancing and giggling together. Their separate forms blurred into light, merged, and then they were Stevonnie.

Stevonnie had always been effortlessly attractive in a way that left Lars a little tongue-tied around them, and now that he was in a relationship with Steven (and with Connie, he supposed?) it was even harder to ignore. Also, they had grown up. Stevonnie's hair was queued back in the same braid that Connie had worn, but dark curls escaped at regular intervals. They were taller than Lars, though only a little taller than Steven was on his own now. They had a faint five o'clock shadow, broad shoulders, curvy hips, and gorgeously shaped legs. Lars was a little overwhelmed.

"So, breakfast?" Lars said faintly. Stevonnie grinned and grabbed him by the hand.

. . .

Breakfast at the diner down the road had been all right, but Lars was glad to be back at Steven's house with Stevonnie. They attracted far too much attention for Lars' comfort, though he was used to the stares by now. His pink skin and hair hadn't been the focus of the attention, however; their waitress had flirted shamelessly with Stevonnie, and Lars had caught a few guys at the front counter sneaking glances. One even had the nerve to ask for their number! Stevonnie had been polite in turning the fellow down, but seemed oblivious to Lars' seething jealousy.

Jealousy was probably a bad quality to have when considering a polyamorous relationship, Lars conceded, but he couldn't help having those feelings. He wanted to bundle Steven-- and by extension, Stevonnie-- away out of the public eye, keeping them all to himself. But for what? His face burned when he thought of doing anything with the fusion beyond sharing a diner booth.

As if tuning into Lars' discomfort, Stevonnie leaned over to rest their head on his shoulder as they sprawled together on Steven's bed. "What do you wanna do? We can play video games, or I've got the Lonely Blade spinoff series on DVD, or..."

Lars shifted away, and Stevonnie frowned. "Lars?"

"I don't know if I can do this," he said, the words tumbling out of him before he'd had a chance to really think about them. "I just... I feel like a third wheel, even when you're fused. Maybe especially because you're fused."

Stevonnie gave him a concerned look, then Steven and Connie were sitting on the bed with him. "Is this better?" Connie asked, fingers anxiously bunching up the hem on her skirt. "I don't... I never meant to..."

"We should talk about this," Steven said, putting one reassuring hand over Connie's and the other on Lars' back. "Lars, you go first. What's on your mind?"

Lars sighed. "It's stupid. I'm stupid, and I'm jealous, and... and I don't know why either of you would want anything to do with me when you have... this."

"Oh, Lars." Steven pulled him into a sideways hug and kissed his temple. "You know there's enough of me to go around!"

Connie snickered at that and gave Lars a fond smile. "Is that what's been worrying you? That we wouldn't want you around just because we have each other?"

"Y-yeah, basically," Lars muttered. "And also... I guess I'm jealous of Stevonnie. I mean, the fusion thing. But I don't even know if I can, so I never wanted to ask."

"Oh! That's a great idea!" Connie clapped her hands, then threw her arms around both Steven and Lars so they were in an awkward three-way hug. "You two should try fusing!"

Lars began to stammer something in response, but Steven immediately took to it, eyes shining. "Yeah! It never really came up before but I always wondered if we could fuse. Do you want to try, Lars? It might help you feel better."

Without a coherent argument against the idea, Lars found himself shrugging and nodding. "Yeah, okay. What've I got to lose?"

"I'll put on some music!" Connie took out her phone and queued up a catchy pop song.

Steven stood from the bed and offered Lars a hand. "Just relax and try to move along with me," he said. "Even if we don't fuse, we can still have fun."

Lars let Steven pull him off the bed and stumbled against the taller man. Steven put one hand on Lars' waist to steady him, still holding onto Lars' hand with the other, and Lars blushed magenta when he realized they were posed like ballroom dancers.

He stole a glance at Connie, who was grinning broadly. She cheered in a stage whisper: "Go Lars!"

For the sake of his dignity, Lars backed up slightly so that he could dance without having Steven lead him so directly. Steven stepped forward, Lars stepped back. Lars pushed, Steven pulled. They moved to the music without any particular plan, yet somehow they were dancing. Lars fell into step more easily after a moment, focusing on how much he cared about Steven and how far their relationship had come in the past few months. He smiled as he remembered their first kiss. When Steven twirled him spontaneously, he even laughed and rolled with it, and when Steven lowered Lars into a dip, he gazed up at his boyfriend with a matching expression of joy and love.

They shared that gaze for a heartbeat, then Steven closed his eyes and leaned down to touch his forehead to Lars'. Lars felt an overwhelming urge to embrace Steven, wanting to be closer to him than ever before. It was almost painful, this desire to escape his own skin, yet it felt good at the same time. It felt... right.

Connie gasped, and Lars-- no, Steven?-- opened his eyes. He was disoriented by the change in perspective, and it took him a moment to understand that he was nearly eight feet tall. Also, damn, look at his arms! When had he ever looked this buff?

"You did it!" Connie said. She ran around him, checking him out from every angle, making him a little dizzy. "The pompadour is pretty slick, I have to say. Outfit's not bad, either. You're definitely a Steven-Lars fusion. How do you feel?"

The new fusion stared at his hands, his feet, craned his neck around to look at his body. "Uh... pretty awesome, actually," he said slowly, and even his voice was a trip, hitting a register below Steven's and Lars', with just a hint of a nasal rasp over a mellow baritone.

_So this is what it's like?_

_Yeah! Isn't it great?_

"I gotta see this," the fusion said, and he hurried downstairs to Steven's bathroom to look in the mirror. Connie was right: nice hairdo, kind of a curly pompadour gone wild, with streaks of pale pink in the black. Stretched lobes with star-shaped plugs. Steven's red shirt had transformed into a ragged crop top, showing off the pink gem in his firm belly. He wasn't a bodybuilder or anything, but there was definitely some muscle definition, a cross between Steven's bulkier figure and Lars' wiry one. Ripped jean shorts with a star-shaped hole on one thigh, and, like Stevonnie, he was barefoot. Instead of a scar under his right eye, he had a raised pink mark shaped like a star, like a birthmark.

"Nice," he confirmed. Beyond the physical appearance, he felt better than he had in a long time-- at least, the part of him that was Lars did. He felt safe, loved. Without realizing he was doing it, he hugged himself and laughed softly, even as tears rolled down his cheeks.

"See? Nothing to be jealous about," he said, and it was Steven talking.

"Who are we... who am I?"

"Steven... Lars..." He gasped, delighted. "We're Stars!"

"That's corny."

"Well, just look at us. Me."

"Are you going to talk to yourself all day?" Connie teased, peeking in through the bathroom doorway.

Stars grinned and flung his arms out wide. "Connie! I'm... I'm awesome!"

She laughed and let him pull her into a hug, dwarfed in his huge arms. "I'm so happy for you!"

Then, she kissed him.

The feedback loop in Stars' brain was too much, and he split without warning. Steven, Lars, and Connie all tumbled in a heap on the bathroom floor.

"My bad," Lars offered weakly from the bottom of the pile.

Steven started to chuckle, which set Connie off, and then they were all giggling like maniacs for a solid five minutes.

Once they'd calmed down a little, they extracted themselves from the bathroom. Steven and Connie each took Lars by the hand and led him back up to Steven's bedroom. They all piled together again, this time more comfortably. Lars had his head on Steven's chest, and Connie was draped across both their laps.

"I think maybe we can make this work," Lars said.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my favorite of the Steven/Lars fics I've written, but I really wanted to write about a Stars fusion and navigating relationship stuff with Connie. Maybe I'll do another part of this to work in the bits I left out for sake of pacing. 
> 
> The final fic I have in mind for this series is a distant future one, and it'll have more angst than the others. Might be awhile before I post that one, though, as I want it to be more polished. Thanks for all the comments and kudos so far!


End file.
